“So how did your first batch of hooch almost cause a race riot?” I asked.

“In prison, you’re supposed to stick with your own race,” Wild Man said. “The gang leaders tell you you can’t break bread with the other races.”

“Explain that a bit for the public.”

“You can’t share food with the other races. You can’t buy drugs from them. But everyone does, especially once you meet some alright guys from the other races. The Chicanos always back up the whites if there’s a race riot against the blacks, and the paisas back up the blacks.”

In Arizona, the four main racial categories are blacks, whites, Chicanos and paisas. The Chicanos are descended from Mexico, but born in America. The paisas are Mexicans born in Mexico. For a more in-depth account of the history of these gangs, including the ongoing war between the paisas and Chicanos, click here to read Warrior’s blog.

“A member of another race can’t sit on my bed under any circumstances,” Wild Man said. “I’m not supposed to sit with the other races and get drunk. But I have a friend who’s a Chicano, Casper, who was getting drunk with me, mind you he’s not sat on my bunk. He’s sat on a chair by my bunk. A white guy, Adam, is sat on my bunk. Me and Adam are messing around, stabbing one other in the arm with a pen. The deal was to see if you could get the pen in just enough to make it stand up, but obviously not get half the pen in. We were just drunk, you know.”

“Yes, sounds about right for you, Wild Man.”

“The youngsters were getting rowdy, all kinds of horseplay among themselves, getting drunk on my hooch. A Chicano youngster threw his mate on the floor, and a white youngster said, ‘Fuck that! I wouldn’t have anyone do that to me!’
The other Chicano lad said to the white youngster, ‘Shut the fuck up, you little punk. You know where the baño is. It’s chingaso time.’
The white youngster stood up, and looks at me ’cause I’m the head of the whites.
I said to him, ‘Go handle your business, and next time don’t even wait for approval. If anyone ever calls you a punk, you hit on sight.’
The youngster goes to handle his business in the bathroom.
Now Casper, the Chicano who’s getting drunk with me, is the head of the Chicanos. And Adam, the white guy stabbing me with the pen, says to Casper, ‘Fuck you, wetback!’ completely out of the blue.”

“Are these pretty big guys?”

“Adam’s about my size. Works out a lot. Has WHITE PRIDE on his chest in German. Doing time for hate crimes. Casper’s small, but stocky. Works out a lot. Has BROWN PRIDE on his belly. Casper jumped up, and hit Adam where he was sat on my bed. Adam fell back, and hit his head on the metal bunk. They were fighting in my house, so I got out of the way. I grabbed my TV, so it didn’t get knocked off the shelf.
Meanwhile, the two youngsters have finished fighting in the bathroom. They’re leaving, so Casper and Adam go to the bathroom to fight. But the Chicano youngster who’s leaving walks towards them as if he’s gonna do something, so I grab him, and throw him up against a wall. The white youngsters see this, and automatically want to fight. They’re taught to protect their head. That’s how they earn their ink. If there’s a confrontation like this, the ones who show heart will get tattoos. The Chicano youngsters are getting ready as well, so it looks like a riot is going to go off.
I say to the white youngsters, ‘Don’t boot up! It’s cool.’”

“Please explain that for the public.”

“No matter where you are or what you’re doing, if the head of a race shouts ‘Boot up!’ then the work boots go on ’cause they’ve got a rubber grip, and the sneakers are too slippy for fighting. They get their stash of shanks out, and it’s out-and-out war. They strap National Geographic magazines on their stomach and arms for body armour.
So it’s all going pear-shaped in the dorm. The cops are looking. There’s peeps stood at the window trying to block the cops’ view, but you can’t block it completely. I’m telling the youngsters, ‘Boot down!’
The Chicano youngsters are still booting up. Casper’s telling them, ‘There’s no problem. Leave it.’
One of their youngsters says, ‘Fuck that! The woods are booting up, so are we.’
Both me and Casper are yelling, ‘Everything’s alright. Boot down.’
The blacks are tripping now. They’re grouped up in a corner.
The white youngsters are drunk and looking for trouble. One says, ‘What’s the blacks fucking problem?’
Then all the youngsters who’ve booted up, whites and Chicanos, start getting ready to go and smash the blacks.
Casper says, ‘No go!’
I yell, ‘No go unless they say anything!’
Then everything settles down. The blacks are OK. The paisas are OK. The chiefs are cool. Everything’s OK, except the dorm has drunk so much hooch, I don’t have enough to pay the Aryan Brotherhood.”

“How much did you owe them?”

“They’d approved me to brew the hooch provided I paid them twenty percent, which in this case was five bottles out of twenty-five. Only I didn’t have five, I only had three left.”

“Uh oh.”

In Wild Man's next blog, he has to answer to the Aryan Brotherhood for the missing hooch.

it's interesting that latinos are divided in Arizona. is that due to the more concentrated population there? who are the Woods? and if they earn the ink is it compulsory? are they getting other work done or is it for the most part there just earned ink?

I was trying to do a crossword and my (now ex) drunken husband was sitting at a right angle to me ranting and raving about some imagined misdemeanour I'd committed (not enough salt in the gravy?). He was poking me in the side with his foot and I reached over to swat his leg away with the pen still in my hand.... that nib went in like a knife through butter...

I was out the door and in my car in a flash. when I came home a few hours later he was asleep on the couch and never mentioned a thing about it the next day!